Oh, what a tangled web…

From the recent RFP proposal: On August 29, 2003, the City invested $500 to become a member of Southern Montana Electric Generation & Transmission Cooperative, Inc. (Southern). This membership allows the City to purchase electricity for resale from Southern.

On October 7, 2003, the City of Great Falls passed ordinance 2861, authorizing establishment and operation of an electric utility to market power service to customers.

On November 1, 2005, the City passed Ordinance 2925 which created Electric City Power, Inc., a non-profit designed to own, operate, and take all other actions necessary or desirable in connection with the municipal electric utility on behalf of the City.

On December 6, 2005, the City passed Resolution 9537 declaring intent of the City to participate in development of Highwood Generating Station (HGS) and authorizing the City Manager to take all actions necessary.  

Electric City Weblog has been attempting to obtain organizational and financial information regarding the SME, ECP and City of Great Falls relationship since at least 2006.

What year did you file your first open records request?
2006

What documents were you looking for?
Financial documents related to a coal plant that our city plans to construct on its outskirts.

Did you get those documents?
Some of them, after months.

Has your local newspaper ever commented on the work you do? Favorably or unfavorably?
Favorably or unfavorably? Our local newspaper studiously avoids discussing any story broken on the blogs.

Many of us have watched Greggs efforts to learn how the ECP, SME, and City relationship is organized and funded. Numerous requests have gleaned some information, which information is what us “uninformed” bloggers must base our assumptions on, because it is all we have.

In a March, 2007 request, ECW asked the City of Great Falls for:

“Financial Records”: Financial statements, financial projections, or accounting Records.
*All Records arising out of or in any way relating to the City’s ownership interest in SME, including all Correspondence, Contracts and/or Financial Records related to the City’s relationship with the other owners of SME. This specifically includes all Records that the City is legally entitled to inspect and copy pursuant to law.

This was in response to an earlier request, which included:

· All organizational documents for Electric City Power, including financial documents showing capitalization.
Documents demonstrating the flow of money between the City of Great Falls and ECP and SME, as well as between ECP and SME.

These requests didn’t come to much. In Gregg’s words “The government of my hometown plans to spend over 128 million dollars on a coal plant, but I guess that the financial records, operating plans and feasibility studies are just none of my business. Sheesh. How did I not know that? My request is “declined.”"

The above is just a small portion of the communications that have been posted on ECW regarding this little Electrical Project our City took upon itself. A side affect of that project is a lawsuit, in which the City is refusing to release documents that several entities, including the Montana Newspaper Association, of which the Great Falls Tribune is a member, believe are covered under Montana public records and right to know laws. I will reference that again in a moment.

Now, ECW was recently made aware that certain tax filings of SME were available to the Public. Reading these documents, filed by SME with the Internal Revenue Service, and containing a statement, under penalty of purgery, that it is complete and correct, one could certainly take the position that a statement made on these documents was correct.

One of the statements was that City Manager John Lawton was paid compensation as a Trustee of SME. This led to a post on ECW, in which Gregg theorized that Lawton was paid, which leads to a conflict of interest with his job as City Manager. Instead of just a link, this is the entire post.

“Southern Montana has never issued a check to John Lawton, to Greg Doyon or to Coleen Balzarini,” said Balzarini, who sits on the SME board as a trustee. She said she does not receive any payments personally for holding that post.

The Tribune printed an additional article today. In it, Colleen Balzarini apparently feels “it is upsetting that area bloggers would post the information online without more explanation, saying they should “get the facts.”

“All they had to do is call and ask,” she said.

In reply, Gregg Smith, who runs Electric City Weblog, criticized the city and Balzarini for not being more forthcoming in turning over documents in the past.

“I don’t even know if she’d take my calls anymore,” Smith said.

Man, if only Gregg had asked for financial documents, this whole thing could have been avoided.

Now, there have been some documents produced in the last few years. As is typical for him, Gregg has posted about the results of his requests. This post has a link to the SME Bylaws, which state in part:

“The trustees shall not receive salarys for their services, but by resolution of the Board of Trustees, a fixed sum may be allowed any Trustee not otherwise receiving compensation as hereinafter provided, for attendance at each regular or special meeting of the board of trustees and expenses of attending, if any.”

This document states meetings are monthly.

Now, yesterday, The Tribune wrote that Balzarini is a trustee of SME. Is she? I thought that the City Manager, Greg Doyan sat on the Board.

Also in that ECW post above is a link to the open records case Privilege log, submitted by the City, of documents considered by Coleen Balzarini and the City’s attorneys to be outside the scope of Montana open records laws. On the first document on is a list of SME board packets, and the footnote: [1]   SME Board Packets refer to the group of bound documents provided exclusively to the SME Board for the sole purpose of SME board meetings.

Remember, board meetings are held monthly. There are 12 board packets identified in 2005, one of which is an August supplement. There are 12 board packets identified in 2006, one of which is a December supplement.  

If the Trustee is paid $250.00 for attending a board meeting, and there were 11 monthly meetings in 2005, and 11 monthly meetings in 2006 (source-Board packets classified as confidential in the privilege log) why was compensation equal to 22 meetings paid in 2005, and compensation equal to 24 meetings paid in 2006?

And is Coleen Balzarini, the representative of the City given the task of deciding what records are confidential, or trade secrets, also really a Trustee of SME, the same SME who threatened the City with litigation if those records were disclosed to the Public?

Is it really any wonder that Gregg relied on a document filed with the IRS, since he had access to no others? Is it really a surprise that he didn’t ask the City for the information? Or perhaps Gregg should have relied more on past dealings, and known that just because the documents say it, that doesn’t mean it is what anyone ment.

Yo, Tribune dudes, if you happen to take a run by and see this post, I have more questions you can take to the City. I don’t have to stop here. Just sayin’.

25 April 2009 | Life | Comments